Word: strehler
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Were Verrett the Lady Macbeth many had anticipated, perhaps Strehler's mannered direction would have been less bothersome. Both visually and vocally, Verrett conveyed little of Shakespeare's "fiendlike queen." Verdi wanted Lady Macbeth to be "twisted and ugly" and to sing with a "raw, choked, hollow voice." That may be asking too much. But Verrett's bland, unchanging facial expression and her constant concern-except in the sleepwalking scene, her best musical moment-with polished tone did not begin to get inside a character that is more important to the opera than Macbeth...
...Marriage of Figaro alone. One takes heart in the present, when a work of such bite and compassion can be done as well as it was on the Paris Opéra's first night in New York. Among the many talents at work was the same essential Strehler as in Macbeth-but what a difference! It was as if he had taken his lead from the Figaro overture, that barely perceptible rustle of strings and woodwinds that swells to incandescence. All was succinct and imbued with restrained passion...
...Strehler, Cherubino is not really a silly little cherub, but a hot-blooded youth out to touch, hold, kiss and sleep with any woman who will have him. The result is that Cherubino becomes the mirror reflecting everyone else's sensuality. Other directorial details linger in the memory: the Countess singing of her lost love (Porgi amor), while behind her lies a trampled bed, the obvious result of a night of lonely tossing; the haunting way the light in the palace recedes in different layers of intensity as the day wanes...
...Italy's Giorgio Strehler, who was responsible for the opening productions of both La Scala and the Paris Opéra, is no ordinary director. When he says the music comes first, he means it. When he uses the phrase no man's land, he means that too; contrasting cases in point are the failure of his Macbeth and the success of his Figaro...
...Strehler's directorial premise is so old-fashioned that it seems new. The most important thing he does for singers is to make sure they are placed where they can sing best. If the dramatic situation demands it, he will not flinch from asking Macbeth to sing lying down or Lady Macbeth to sleepwalk across a ledge. But he is never gratuitous about imposing feats of physical endurance. Says Francesco Sicilian!, La Scala's artistic consultant: "He never betrays his material in order to make an audience burst into applause at his daring." Strehler would go along with...